


A Life Less Free

by flipflop_diva



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:23:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1892064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes being a Lannister is a hard price to pay. A look inside Cersei Lannister. Set during Season 2, but no real spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life Less Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brutti_ma_buoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/gifts).



> brutti_ma_buoni, I hope you like this! I've only watched Game of Thrones and I haven't read ASOIAF, so I deeply apologize if any of the backstory is wrong or inaccurate.

The long grass tickled her bare feet and her ankles as she ran, patches of mud squishing through her toes and turning her skin from white to almost black. The bottom of her once starch-white dress caught on a little branch, and she felt a pull as the material snagged, the jerk causing her to stumble.

She tripped forward until finally coming to a stop on her knees, landing square in the middle of a bigger mud pile, and she laughed, happily and delightedly.

She paused just a moment before scrambling to her feet. With no one near her to frown at her or scold her, she kept going, throwing her arms out to the side as she ran, like she herself could take to the air, just like the dragons she had read about in the stories the servants told to her.

Her laugh echoed through the quiet daytime air, and her smile beamed huge and glowing across her face.

Her favorite tree was close now, and she reached it within seconds, scrambling up as far as she could, as though she were born to do it.

Halfway up, where the two main limbs intersected, under a shadow of glistening green leaves, she took a seat, crossing her legs and looking down.

No one could see her up here, but she could see almost all of Casterly Rock, and she laughed again, so happy and free.

In the far distance, she could see the workers setting up tables and festive decorations. Tomorrow was her seventh name day, and like every year, there would be a party in her honor. A party where she would wear her prettiest dress and let her handmaiden brush her hair until it gleamed like spun gold and where she would sit and watch the entertainment her father had ordered just for her. Her brothers would sit next to her. Her older brother, Jamie, who she would giggle with and talk to throughout the whole thing, and her little brother Tyrion who wasn’t like the rest of them and who Father said was an embarrassment.

All the guests and all the staff would wish her a happy name day and tell her she was beautiful and say how blessed she was to be born a Lannister. And she would nod, as she was supposed to, and say thank you very much in her politest voice, because that is how she was taught.

But in her mind she would wish she were back here, up in her tree, away from the castle and Father and all the formalities and traditions and rules. Up here, in her tree, she could dream about her life.

Sometimes she looked toward the water and dreamed about running away. About getting on a boat and setting sail to wherever it would take her.

But she knew she could not do that. She would never get away. Father would find her. 

She was a Lannister, he always told her, and nothing was more important than family honor. She had to do what she was born to do — find a proper husband, a husband who would be king, and marry him, bear him heirs — sons, who could grow up and rule King’s Landing.

As the Lannisters were born to do.

It was their fate. She must play her part.

In the distance, she heard a bugle blow. It was dinner time. They would be looking for her soon. She glanced down at her dress, now torn and dirty. She could already hear the staff’s lectures, see the disappointment in Father’s eyes.

She wanted to stay up in this tree forever.

It was not allowed.

She slid down and headed back toward home. 

But she made sure to go slowly.

 

•••

 

Cersei stood on the balcony, staring into the distance, a smile playing on her face. She knew the little girl thought she was alone, thought no one had seen, but a mother always knows.

Cersei had watched Myrcella slip away from the servants and out the door. She had watched her look around to make sure no one was paying attention. And she had watched her kick off her shoes, hiding them neatly and carefully in the shadows of a bush, and run, her hair and her dress flying behind her, up the paths and through the trees until she came to the one she was looking for.

And then Cersei had watched her climb it, just as she herself had climbed a similar one so many years before.

“She really is just like you.” 

The voice came from behind her. She turned to see Jamie hold out a glass of wine for her.

“Let’s hope she is not just like me,” Cersei said, taking the wine with a nod.

“Well,” Jamie cocked his head. “She is sweeter.”

“Hmmm,” Cersai said. “She is, yes.”

Cersai turned back to watch their daughter in the distance. Tyrion’s idea of sending her away in a few days’ time was killing her inside, but she wasn’t sure she had a choice — she never had much of a choice when it came to family matters — and there was a part of her that maybe envied the little girl.

Maybe Myrcella could have a chance at a small piece of life that was not bound by being a Lannister. Maybe she could have a few years that didn’t revolve around traditions and formalities and having to do what was best for the family.

For a second, Cersei thought about taking Myrcella, in the middle of the night, and just leaving with her, sailing away to someplace where they could be free, where no one would know them.

Except there was no place, and she could not do that. She could not leave her other children. She could not leave King’s Landing. She could not leave being a Lannister.

And neither could Myrcella. She was free now, still young and innocent and brave enough to climb trees and hide from staff, but someday she would get older and she would have to be married to a suitable man who she might not love but who would help her secure more land and more riches for the family name.

That was the life she was born into. The life Cersei was born into. There was no escape.

“You know it is for the best,” Jamie said next to her, as though he were reading her thoughts.

“I know no such thing,” Cersei replied, but she did not have the energy to argue something that could not be argued.

In the distance, the trumpets blew. It was almost time for dinner. Maybe her last meal with her precious daughter before she was shipped away.

She watched as in the distance her only daughter slipped down from her perch on the tree, heading back toward the castle.

Cersei smiled to herself. She knew Myrcella’s dress would be ripped and dirty, but tonight she would not scold her.

Instead she would smile at her and hope she understood that, sometimes, it was okay to be free.


End file.
